This season of Project Runway is going well--maybe a little too well. Where's a Santino or a Jeffrey when you need one? Watching people competently make acceptable designs week after week is interesting from a fashion perspective, but it's not getting us our trashy reality TV fix. Why can't Christian and Sweet P get in a fistfight? Why isn't Chris dressing up in drag on set? Why do we still get Ricky and Rami confused sometimes? The designers are keeping a focus on design, which is great, but not really dramatic enough. And even the judges aren't being nitpicky enough to keep things interesting. Here's hoping some drama surfaces in the next few weeks, or this will be a real yawn of a season. There isn't even anybody on the show we want to see kicked out! How can you run a reality show like this? It's just one big happy family of pretty swell designers.

You can't say they didn't try to introduce drama, though--this week's challenge was to make a prom dress for a real live high schooler. Matching haughty designers with hyper teens seems like a recipe for disaster, but only one designer-(wannabe) debutante team (Christian and Maddie) had issues, and the teens only got rowdy for a little while. More on the dresses and the (lack o') drama--including who went all the way--after the jump.

At the beginning of the episode, the designers guessed that "midgets or oompa loompas" were behind the curtain. They weren't far off--a group of teenage girls from Saint John Vianney high school in New Jersey paraded out onto the runway, and the designers were challenged to design the girls' super ultimate dream prom dresses. If it's not every girl's dream to be on Project Runway, perhaps it's at least a dream to get a professionally design custom prom dress.

Though you might expect spoiled Catholic school girls to be demanding when it comes to what they'll wear on the biggest night of their lives (for their sake, let's hope prom isn't really that important), most of the girls were relatively demure. Only Christian--who called prom "cheap" and "trashy" from the start of the show--got stuck with an up-and-coming designer as his young client. Considering he's only 21 himself, Christian wasn't that much older than fashionista Maddie, who didn't hesitate to pick up her pencil and modify Christian's sketches during the discussion process. Most of the other designers got on well with their young clients, though, with the only other notable event being Victorya's client saying "Actually, I got the last choice," when asked what she liked about Victorya's designs. Can we say ouch?

Modesty was a concern for the designers, some of whom toned down their client's desired cuts in the interest of recognizing the girls' youth. This turned out to be a smart decision, particularly as the models' moms attended the second fitting, and didn't hesitate to voice their concerns about fit; Kevin's model's mom criticized his empire waist baby doll dress for making her daughter look bulky. Talk about the last feature you want your prom dress to have--bulkitude is definitely not on the road to prom night fulfillment.

The requisite embarrassing prom pictures were displayed throughout the episode. Kevin looked cute, but Kit stole the show--turns out she was a prom princess and her date was a prom prince back in high school. Only Chris bravely admitted that he didn't go to prom but watched old movies and got drunk at home instead. That's our kind of contestant.

Since they're so familiar with dressmaking, most of the contestants didn't have huge problems with the creation this time around. Christian ran into some trouble with the back of his dress being too short, but chose to ignore his problems by throwing himself into decorating the dress with lace, flowers, and beading. Victorya's initial design "looked like something an Italian, older divorcee would wear," so she got a little advice from Christian and changed it up, saying, "At the end of the day, I just decided to go with what I wanted." Rami liked his dress, but Tim Gunn (as usual) served as the voice of the judges when he asked, "Is she going to look like she's wearing her mother's dress?" Tim also gave Christian a much-needed kick in the pants and told him to stop moping and start working. Christian got himself down in the dumps so much that he even said, "You guys are really gonna miss me tomorrow," suggesting an imminent departure.

The dresses, overall, were good, but nothing that you couldn't find on the rack in a department store. Victorya's dress was poofy, short, and bright blue, with a showy jeweled top. Chris made a beautiful bright green dress with great flow; Kevin created a red halter dress that seemed a little short. Jillian's dress was barely shown during the episode, but was a long, light blue-green gown with a darker bodice. Christian's client didn't walk well in her dress, and Kit's dress was perhaps not quite "prom" enough with its simple color blocks. Ricky made a pretty pink dress that sparkled, and Rami made perhaps the most unique dress--a medium, almost Kelly green with one rolled strap shoulder and one full, toga-like draped shoulder. Daring, but delightful--just perhaps not a prom dress. (Check the Bravo photo page for photos--hopefully they'll be up soon!)

The judges weren't too harsh, with the main criticism being that some dresses were a little sophisticated for the age group. Sweet P and Victorya were the top two, and Heidi Klum even said, "I think you look gorgeous," to Sweet P's model. What better compliment for a seventeen-year-old--or, heck, for anybody! Kevin's dress was alernately criticized for being matronly and cheap, which seem like somewhat contradictory adjective to us, but hey--what do we know? "The girl inside me would wear this," said Ricky of his dreamy pink creation, but the judges found it a bit boring and said the ruching wasn't very well done. Kors told Ricky he should've turned up the fashion volume!

As noted, Victorya won the challenge with her unusual approach, which her model/client loved--and looked adorable in. We don't really accept a poufy bright blue dress with jeweled neck as a viable prom (or anytime) option, but we do appreciate that Victorya took a unique turn. Christian and Kevin were thrown to the wolves, if Heidi Klum can be considered a wolf (we're trying to avoid a "fox" pun here) for poor execution on both of their parts, and poor taste by Kevin. The apparent cheapness of Kevin's dress put him on the fashion guillotine, and Christian got to stay to whine another week. We liked Kevin and thought he was consistently excellent, so we're sorry to see him go. Still, Christian has talent in addition to talk, and we're excited to see what he does next...

...which may very well be vomit. The previews for next week show Christian feeling like he's going to throw up, and Rami and Sweet P arguing about their approaches to fashion. Will next week finally be the drama we're looking for? Keep your pins crossed and scissors at the ready!

Image from http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/index.php